Who am I?

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself the question, who am I?  I mean, like really stop and reflect on what makes you, you?  This week in my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class, I really had to self-reflect on who I am, what my goals are and how can I help and uplift those around me.  I have to admit, this was not an easy thing to do.  I have grown up being quite confident in knowing what my strengths and weaknesses are.  I have always felt as though I have had a good grasp on what I can and cannot accomplish.  I have prided myself in my ability to self-evaluate honestly and adjust my goals accordingly.

This week was different.

This week I had to face my fears. 

In my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class, I had to write my four biggest fears.  This was a hard assignment.  I'm not sure why this assignment was so hard for me, but I think that it could be that I actually do whatever I can to NOT confront my fears so that I do not succumb to them.  So, being required to actually sit down and list my fears was extremely hard for me to do.  After listing my fears, I had to write what I would do to avoid having these fears realized.  That part was easy.  I could easily list all of the things that I would do to avoid these fears from taking reality.  The last part of the assignment required me to write down what I would do if these fears actually came true to get my life back to the status quo.  I did it, and do you know what?  I felt like a superhero.  All of a sudden, these fears that I have always had at the back of my mind seemed like nothing.  I felt as though I was Wonder Woman and could fly through the air and defeat anything that came at me because even if the worst case scenario happened to me, I would be alright.  There would be no negative lasting consequence that would hinder my ability to have a happy and successful life should my fears materialize.  In one of the videos that I watched this week, Sharon Mayes stated that we do not need to be afraid of failure.  This is the power that the assignment gave me.  I am no longer afraid.  I am excited to begin the next chapter in creating my new business now because I almost feel as though I can accomplish anything.

If you know me, you know that I am a goal-oriented type of person.  I believe in constantly increasing our capacity to learn and our talents and abilities.  In reading the required chapters of "The Ministry of Business", I was challenged to write a personal constitution.  This personal constitution is a document that states who I want to be.  In doing this assignment, I came up with the following as my personal constitution:

I want to be a disciple of Christ and to become humble.  I understand that the greatest attribute of someone who is humble is to have an incredible amount of self-worth.  I want to gain that self-worth by becoming charitable to my fellowmen.  By becoming charitable to my fellowmen, I want to be able to see those around me as the Lord sees them.  I want to raise myself above the desires of the natural man and see my life through an eternal perspective.  In so doing, I want to become financially self-reliant in order to have the necessary tools to take care of my family in any and all circumstances, no matter what challenges and trials should arise. I want to raise my children to be successful, happy, well-rounded adults who positively contribute to society.

I am sure that different aspects of this personal constitution will change as I get older, however I encourage anyone who has never written out an actual statement of the person that they want to be, to do so.  In order to write a personal constitution, you have to reflect on who you truly are.  You need to admit your weaknesses as well as your strengths and write a personal constitution based on who you want to become.  The whole point of this is to create a model of the ideal person that you are striving to become.  I loved this concept.  I feel that now that I have this personal constitution, I will be able to have my own personal motto.  When I feel as though I am in a morally tough situation, I now have something upon which to lean.  As I strive to be a successful entrepreneur and a better mother to my children, I now have this foundation upon which to build the rest of my life.

In the exercise that followed writing this personal constitution, we then had to set long-term and short-term goals as well as daily tasks.  This part was easy for me because, as I mentioned before, I have always been a goal-oriented person and have already set many of these goals.

So, this is me.  It was painful disassembling my personality to get to this point, but I believe that I have a truer sense of myself.  I have faced my monsters that were hidden under the bed and I am excited to start building my pyramid of success.  I am excited to continue working on making myself better in order to be able to better help those around me.  I am glad that I now have my personal constitution as a banner that flies above me whenever someone asks me who I want to be.  I hope that one day you won't have to ask me who I want to be because I will have become this person.